What is considered probably the greatest international sporting event, other than the Olympics, is now well underway and already reaching fever pitch. In almost every corner of the world fans are following the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018 event, supporting their country (if they are still in it) or their favourite team, and getting increasingly anxious to see them progress to the final.
And what about you? Are you the type of football enthusiast who likes to operate with the match commentary on the radio constantly in the background, or are you not overly worried and too busy with your fleet? What about your staff and drivers? The next few paragraphs very much involve you whether you are a football fan or not and actually outline a lot of points in common with the fleet management profession and with running vehicles in general. You will be surprised how much you can relate to this event, and these points might also be a good team building activity for your drivers. Let’s begin!
#1 - Distracted driving is definitely an issue and collision avoidance systems are very much under discussion. We are not talking about your drivers listening to matches while driving (hopefully they are not doing anything as foolish as using tablets or phones behind the wheel to check the results—you’d better have a policy regulating that kind of behaviour if you suspect this might be happening) or using in-vehicle technologies, but this is more to do with something that happened at the very beginning of the event reported by Fleet Europe: just ahead of the World Cup games on Sunday, June 17, a taxi-driver in Moscow accelerated onto the sidewalk and ran over several pedestrians before hitting a traffic sign, something that would have probably been avoided with the use of specific safety systems. The taxi driver has been detained by police and the case is being investigated and has sparked widening discussions on the adoption of emergency brake systems and similar safety devices.
#2 - The World Cup has its own fleet: organising such a huge event requires fast transportation of media officers, players, officials throughout the whole tournament and vehicles need to be readily available to facilitate the logistics. This year, vehicle manufacturer Kia Motors has provided 424 vehicles to assist operations at the Russia 2018 FIFA World Cup. Kia Motors has been FIFA’s Official Partner since 2007.
Photo Credit: http://www.thedrive.com/news/21262/kia-provides-424-vehicles-for-official-use-at-2018-fifa-world-cup-russia
#3 - FIFA is making growing use of GPS and tracking technologies. Yes, if you are a football supporter you will probably know this already—GPS technology has been fully recognized as a method of location tracking in football. Both on and off the pitch, this World Cup is seeing technology playing a bigger role than ever. Consider not only the goal-line technology, already in use for some time, but also the use of ‘wearables’ that generate player positional data and metrics for tactical analysis—just some of the latest technologies making news. GPS-based wearables are worn by players and record the data of hundreds of events per second—from player position, to distance covered, to speed and number of accelerations, heart rate, to kick accuracy and even the impact from tackles. By running this data on a special analysis platform, coaches can plan team strategies, substitutions, design physical workouts sessions and suchlike, according to the demands of each player’s position. Doesn’t this all sound familiar to you? In this video you will see how this is put into practice:
#4 - Metrics and technology are an invaluable help to managing teams. Exactly like it happens for fleets, technology is making life much easier, helping to eliminate mistakes and improving performance. VAR (Video Assistance Referee), GLT (Goal Line Technology) and EPTS (Electronic Performance and Tracking Systems) are key innovations today just like vehicle tracking, dashboard cameras and fleet management solutions are for your daily activity. This is how the teams can take advantage of metrics to improve their collective performance:
If you wish to do the same for your fleet, don’t hesitate to let us know!
